NEW DELHI: The Telecom Commission has ratified the Rs 5,000-crore government proposal to give away 2.5 crore mobile handsets at subsidised prices but has raised objections to the other proposed scheme to hand out 90 lakh tablets to class XI and XII students of the state and central government schools.

According to minutes of a meeting of the commission, the contents of which were reviewed by ET, the panel has decided to alter the criteria for allotting the mobile phones. Telecom commission is the highest decision-making body in the telecom ministry. "A detailed mechanism for identification of beneficiaries needs to be specified," the commission has noted.

The initial proposal had sought to target the beneficiaries through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme ( MNAREGA). After reviewing these suggestions, the proposal will now be placed before the Cabinet.

The Telecom Commission, however, deemed as difficult to implement the proposal to allot 90 lakh tablets to students as it would have much wider ramifications than the close-ended scheme envisaged in the initial proposal. It has instead suggested that in the first phase, the scheme should be implemented only for the central schools or an even narrower target of girls' schools funded by central governments.

The panel also raised objections over nominating state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd as the sole implementing agency for both the schemes.

As reported earlier by ET, the government was set to spend Rs 10,000 crore as part of its continuous efforts to woo voters ahead of upcoming state and national elections. According to the initial plan, the government would charge Rs 300 for a mobile phone, which would be bundled with a monthly recharge of Rs 30 for a period of two years. The recharge was to entitle the user to 30 minutes of airtime, 30 SMSes and 30 MB usage a month.

The schemes were to be funded by the cash-rich USOF, which currently has a corpus of close toRs 28,000 crore and receives aroundRs 6,500 crore in contribution from telecom operators each year.

The initial proposal had sought to target the beneficiaries through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme ( MNAREGA).
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Did i see a "phone" scam at end of tunnel?
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We know how MNAREGA worked!

well that 5000cr can bring smile on many hunger people face ... can bring education to many poor people ... to just win the general election this govt is offering these gimmiks ... .damn ... hate this govt.

The schemes were to be funded by the cash-rich USOF, which currently has a corpus of close toRs 28,000 crore and receives aroundRs 6,500 crore in contribution from telecom operators each year.

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Someone told me that this is Congress government using the Republic to make themselves rich and does not mind how it does it and is in your face about it (like they dont mind).

The implementation has been objected "nominating state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd as the sole implementing agency" because the current government wants as much of the "corpus" to flow through their hands and middle men.

They want to bug the entire nation that's why they will be giving out mobile phones for free.

As bad as the IT Act is, legally the government has done far worse. In the licenses that the Department of Telecommunications grants Internet service providers, cellular providers and telecoms, there are provisions that require them to provide direct access to all communications data and content even without a warrant, which is not permitted by the existing laws on interception. The licenses also force cellular providers to have â€˜bulk encryptionâ€™ of less than 40 bits. (Since G.S.M. network encryption systems like A5/1, A5/2, and A5/3 have a fixed encryption bit length of 64 bits, providers in India have been known use A5/0, that is, no encryption, thus meaning any person â€” not just the government â€” can use off-the-air interception techniques to listen to your calls.